(BiharTimes)The communications minister’s life sketch on the MPs’ official website shows only Mrs Reena Paswan as his wife. But when did Mrs Reena Paswan replace Mrs Raj Kumari on the website? That Mr Paswan married Mrs Reena Sharma, in 1983 is well known. What’s not, is his marriage to Mrs Raj Kumari in the 1960s when he was yet to become a people’s representative.

Mr Paswan has two daughters from his first wife, Usha and Asha. Usha is married to the son of a Lok Janshakti MLA, Mr Punit Rai, while Asha’s husband is an excise department inspector in Bihar.

The politician’s life sketch must have shown Mrs Raj Kumari as his wife when he won the Hajipur Lok Sabha seat for the first time in 1977. Till then he hadn’t married Mrs Reena Paswan, who is from Haryana.

His life sketch on the website goes like this:
“Paswan, Shri Ram Vilas (Hajipur),
Father’s name: Late Shri Jamun Paswan,
Mother’s name: Smt Siya Devi,
Place of Birth: Shaharbani, Distt- Khagaria, Bihar,
Marital status: Married,
Spouse’s Name: Smt. Reena Paswan,
No of Sons-1,
No of daughters-3.

Mr Paswan’s life sketch doesn’t deny the due to his children. Apart from the two daughters from his first marriage, he has a daughter and a son from his second wife. Mrs Raj Kumari, officially no longer the wife of Mr Paswan, still lives at Shaharbani. This correspondent remembers meeting her in 1992. The dark complexioned, simple woman then had two monkeys as pets.

How did she feel after her husband married another woman? Mrs Raj Kumari had said candidly: “Sab bare log do biwiyan rakhte hain… usme koi burai nahin hai (Most great people keep two wives… there’s nothing wrong in it).”

She was not familiar with the Hindu marriage Act that prohibits a man from marrying a second time without securing divorce from the first wife. Mrs Raj Kumari had then said that she had and stayed with her husband in the New Delhi for six months after he secured the Hajipur seat in 1977.

Didn’t she want to live with her husband any longer? She had said: “Which woman doesn’t want to live with her husband?... He has probably married Reena because I’m an illiterate and not good looking.’’

Mr Paswan’s younger brother, Mr Ram Chandra Paswan, now an MP, too lived at Shaharbani then. “Bhabhiji (Mrs Raj Kumari) is the real master of our household,” he had said.